Insulation Upgrades

The thermal and pressure boundary of your building typically offers the most opportunities for improvements, as the cost of these improvements are lowest, and the impact of improvements the greatest. With the assistance of the blower door, pressure gauge, and infrared imaging, we inspect and evaluate your building's current insulation levels and the effectiveness of the installations. We do this without inspection holes. Testing combined with the auditor's experience reveals anomalies, identifying these locations for repair, and the overall R-value of the installation can be estimated. These values can be compared to current recommended values for your climate zone, and analyzed by computerized energy modeling. Modeling offers estimates of energy savings related to improvements.

Windows and doors are inspected for performance, proper installation and maintenance. Most people identify windows as the number one energy improvement for buildings, but due to their high cost, windows are often a low priority. If your windows and doors latch and seal properly, the differences between products, old and new, are marginal.

Due to typical installation practices which cause gaps and compression of the insulation, the wall insulation may not be performing as well as it could. To improve comfort, reduce air leakage, and reduce energy use, consider having your walls dense-packed with insulation. The less insulation you have and the leakier your walls are the more air leakage improvement you will see, but be sure to fix any obvious large leaks first to more fully control air leakage.

Insulating your walls can lead to a dramatic reduction in utility bills. The estimated cost shown here is for a contractor drilling holes in the wall cavities either from the inside or outside and filling the space with cellulose, fiberglass, or even foam insulation. If it's time to replace your exterior siding, then be sure to ask your contractor about adding a layer of rigid foam underneath the new sheathing of 1" or more.

Have us determine whether more insulation can be added to the walls. If so, add blown cellulose or short-fiber fiberglass to existing wall insulation to decrease air leakage and improve comfort in uncomfortable rooms.

Floor Above Garage / Cantilevers

Insulating floors above the garage and cantilevers can dramatically increase the comfort of bedrooms and other living spaces above, mitigating heat loss to the leaky garage space, or the outdoors.